If you're ready to begin incorporating plyometric exercises in your workout routine, you're going to want to have a cushioned floor available. Plyometrics can be difficult on the joints of people when performed over a hard surface. That's where our 3/8 rubber flooring enters the picture, as it provides a cushioned resilience that absorbs impact to reduce leg injuries. The Greatmats plyometric flooring 3/8 inch thickness is perfect for the running, bounding and jumping exercises that are part of plyometric exercising. In fact, our gym flooring rolls are great for using in any situation where a little extra padding would be nice to have, such as for cheerleading practice, for aerobic studios and for dance studios.

The slight cushioning of the plyometric rubber flooring provides just the right mix of cushion and solid footing to allow for the sudden movements that occur in various types of exercising, including plyometrics.

Plyometric Exercises

The idea of using plyometric exercise has grown in popularity quite a bit in recent years. Plyometrics primarily aim to give athletes more explosive power in their muscles. Because of the tough jumps and sudden movements involved in plyometrics, injuries are a possibility. The cushioned surface in the plyometric mat works well to reduce the chances of these injuries. Some common types of movements that you'll find with plyometrics include the following.

Box Jumping: Front and lateral box jumping, where the athlete repeatedly jumps from the ground onto an elevated surface, such as the top of a box, and back down to the ground, benefits greatly from 3/8 rubber flooring, where the cushioning makes the landing softer and easier on the knee joints and ankles.

Lateral Jumping: Plyometrics athletes repeatedly will jump back and forth over an object a few inches off the ground or over a line on the floor. These jumps may not involve jumping far off the ground, but the repeated landings in a short amount of time can be especially tough on ankles without the padding in rubber gym flooring rolls like Greatmats offers.

Squat and Skater Jumping: Side-to-side jumping and lunging represent a key component of plyometric exercises. By making use of the Plyometric Rubber Roll with 3/8 inch thickness from Greatmats, you'll still have a steady footing for pushing off with these types of jumps, along with the cushioning to make landings feel better.

Other Exercising Ideas for Plyometric Flooring

Consider rubber gym flooring rolls for use in a school or athletic gym setting too. The cushioning available with these mats is amazing for keeping students and athletes healthy and able to perform at the top level, both during practices and games. Additionally, by offering a slightly cushioned rubber flooring rolls for gyms, athletes will be able to practice longer without pain and fatigue.

Cheerleading Workouts: If your cheerleading team at school or at the team gym must hold practice on a hard floor, such as a wood gym floor, the rubber gym flooring rolls from Greatmats will give you a much more appropriate flooring material. Cheerleaders are constantly performing jumps, rolls, hand springs and sudden dance moves where a cushioned flooring will yield a less stressful workout and help to avoid injuries.

Heavy Workouts: The 3/8 rubber flooring works great for intense aerobics and advanced plyometrics. By making use of cushioning in the floor during heavy aerobics routines, you'll have a greater ability to work out for longer periods without wearing down.

Picking an Installation Type

The 3/8 rubber flooring mats from Greatmats are easy to install. Depending on the use case you have in mind, we recommend taping or gluing down the mats to avoid having the flooring slide around on you during use. Gluing the rubber gym flooring rolls works best for permanent areas that have a high level of activity that could cause the mats to slide. Taping works best when the activity will be at an intermediate level, rather than at a high level, or if your workout space is more temporary.

However, when used as an underlayment for dance floors and other athletic floors, you can perform a dry lay installation with no adhesives if you choose. Of course, the advantage to a dry lay installation is that you can roll up the rubber gym flooring rolls when you've completed your activity and return the floor back to the original sub-floor.

Installation works best when placing the mats over a hard and flat surface. Dried concrete and wood offer the most successful sub-flooring options for these mats. If the sub-floor has slight indentations or raised areas, those imperfections will be visible through the plyometric mat material. You may want to try to repair any imperfections before you lay down the mats.

Plyometric Rubber Installation Tips

Before installation, you'll want to clean the flooring completely, removing dirt, grease, or any other foreign materials. We also recommend allowing the sub-floor to dry completely before attempting to install the 3/8 rubber flooring. Moisture on the sub-floor may cause the adhesive to fail prematurely or to not work at all.

We recommend starting rolling all of the mats from one wall of the room and going in the same direction every time. Additionally, make sure the same side of the roll is facing upward as you roll them out, just to minimize the chance of having significant variations in the shading of the mat's black color.

To avoid having to make many cuts, begin by rolling out the 3/8 rubber flooring rolls from the corner of the room that is most square. Then, if other walls aren't quite square, you can make trims and cuts as needed. The rubber material used in our rubber gym flooring rolls is relatively easy to cut with a utility knife and a straight edge.

If the walls in the room are not as square as you'd like them to be, you also have the option of creating an island installation, where you don't butt the material up against the walls. The combined plyometric mat area just floats in the middle of the room.

We do not recommend using duct tape or other strong types of tape to tape down the seams on the top section of the floor. Use of tape on the surface of the rubber flooring may cause a sticky residue to be left on floor that's extremely difficult to clean.

Plyometric Flooring Maintenance Tips

Our plyometric flooring rubber roll is economical and easy to maintain. To take care of the surface, you'll just vacuum the flooring as needed, usually a few times per week, depending on the amount of use the floor receives.

If you would like to have a more thorough cleaning of the 3/8 rubber flooring, you can use a damp mop as needed with a neutral pH cleaner such as Taski Profi. The slightly porous structure of rubber gym flooring rolls requires more drying time after mopping than standard rubber flooring. (This porous design also gives the plyometric mat flooring its bounce back capability with a bit of cushioning.)

Should you ever have some sort of damage or discoloration on the surface of the 3/8 rubber flooring, you have the option of reversing an individual mat.

Plyometric Mat Ordering Options

This highly-shock absorbent plyometric flooring roll measures 3/8 inch in thickness, but we at Greatmats also offer it in a 1/2 inch thickness measurement. If you're unsure which thickness will work best for your particular use cases, just contact our knowledgeable and friendly customer service team to gain the advice you need.

Our five-year manufacturer's limited warranty tells you how confident we are in the unmatched durability of the Plyometric Rubber Roll with 3/8 inch thickness. This floor will stand up to the explosive repetitions performed in rigorous athletic workouts, including plyometrics.

You can count on the quality of our rubber gym flooring rolls too, as they are a Made-in-the-USA product. Each plyometric mat has a thickness tolerance measurement of plus or minus 0.02 inches. By adhering to such strict manufacturing tolerances, our mats will work great for years. Cheaper mats that aren't as well constructed may have multiple areas of thin spots. This can cause the mats to buckle in those areas, leading to a premature failure of the rolls with cracking and tearing.

We also use tight tolerances in the size of the plyometric mat pieces. As a standard measurement, each mat is 4 feet wide, and the widths are created in tolerances of plus or minus 1/4 of an inch. As far as lengths, you can make a custom order of the length measurement of the roll. Contact customer service at Greatmats to learn more about your ordering options.

All of our Plyometric Rubber Roll 3/8 Inch mats are of a great quality and will deliver the cushioning and long life you're seeking at a great price.

Please Note: Cut lengths for rolled rubber products are provided as a courtesy at no additional cost to customers. In come cases, the manufacturer may provide a cut length within two pieces of material. In other cases, the manufacturer may send material that is over or under the specified linear footage. In all cases, the manufacturer is required to supply the overall amount of material per order. It is common for rolled rubber jobs to have butt seams or cut end seams within one roll or run.

Would this work on a low pile carpet? We have some low pile carpet down in our garage (converted to a media room).

This rolled rubber option can be installed over a low pile carpet.

How would this be in a Zumba studio?

This product can be used for some aerobics, it might be a little more grippy than is liked for some twisting moves on the balls of your feet. We have other flooring options for Zumba and Jazzercise in this blog.

Can this be used as a sub floor underneath a glue down engineered hard wood floor? Need it for dance. And does it smell?

We don't have testing for this type of use for a sub flooring dance floor in a glued down environment. We do use this rubber material for sub flooring in a dry lay installation with modular tiles.

Can this product be used as a subfloor for a regular wood floor installation over a concrete slab?

If the wood floor is free floating then yes, if it's a nail down then no. We have less thick rubber underlayment materials that are rated as flooring underlayments.

Could this be installed with a cork floor on top over a concrete slab?

Yes this rubber flooring material can be installed over any hard flat surface. Over wood or cork, we would recommend first laying down a sheet of plastic to protect the surface from any potential staining over time from the rubber material.

Does it smell, or outgas at all?

This type of rubber has a very low smell. All rubber has some level of smell. We have free samples that one can request on our site for review.

I can see that one customer used this rubber roll as a sub-floor for her ballet studio. I was wondering if this rubber roll needs to be covered by wood panels or just covering it with ballet marley would be enough?

This type of rubber roll can be covered with marley vinyl only. No wood in needed.

We have a deck above our offices, and it is very loud when people walk across it. Would putting this on the deck above be a good way to reduce the footstep noise in our offices?

This product is for indoor use only. We have other outdoor rooftop and deck products on that category page on our site. If this is indoor, then this would be a good option to reduce sound.

I have an application for this type of material which requires a wheeled office chair to be used. Will this matting allow an office chair to roll easily with a person sitting in it?

This product is a little too soft for this use type, while the person is sitting.

Under product description says it is in rolls of 4x30ft. The space I need these for is only 20 ft long, could I simply cut of the excess or would that lead to increased deterioration?

These rolls can be cut to any length as needed, please call customer service. To your question, the rubber can be cut to length as needed onsite as well with no product degradation.

I would be putting this rubber matting over a ceramic tile flooring that has 1/4 inch grout lines. Can I still put this directly over that flooring and then my marley on top of that for ballet and contemporary modern dance

Yes the rubber will span those grout lines for the most part.

Could this be put down over a gravel floor in a machine shed? It would be mostly in front of the bench work area to stand on, but also an area to work on something.

Maybe its ok if the gravel is compacted, this material in general should be on a hard flat surface.

Greatmats was so helpful. I got the product that I wanted and the service that I wanted. We're a very ballet oriented studio. The technique is very important to us.

Sue

SAINT CLOUD, MN

Customer Rating:

11/06/2017

love the product - it is perfect for my needs... lots of plyometrics and floor work. But the service of this company really puts them over the edge. Thanks so much for your time and the product. Highly recommend this company

Mandy

Chicago, IL

Customer Rating:

10/23/2017

This flooring makes a great surface for my basement gym which is over concrete. It helps with general shock absorption while weight lifting, but it's not too squishy to make my spin bike or rower unsteady. I usually use an extra mat on top of this for floor exercises such as yoga or ab work.

Carol

Fort Collins, CO

Customer Rating:

10/20/2017

Easily installed and easy to work with.

Cathy

Garden City South, NY

Customer Rating:

01/04/2017

It picks up every single piece of dust. And you can't get dust footprints completely out. Product terrible. Don't buy.

Rachelle

Sugar Land , TX

Customer Rating:

03/16/2016

I bought 5 rolls of the plyometric rubber. I installed it myself to make a home gym. We put some exercise machines on top and also use it extensively for HIIT workouts. I have found the rubber to work great for this purpose. It is not too hard on the joints and has not slipped. I used carpet tape to keep it in place. It took me about 12 hours to install but came together quite well and easy for someone who does not do this work very often. It stays pretty clean but picks up some marks at times. We vacuum it once a week and that keeps it quite clean. Greatmats was terrific in counseling me about picking the right flooring to use for the purpose I described. It was delivered on a pallet. The truck was able to put it directly into my garage. Thanks.

Kurt

LaVerne, CA

Customer Rating:

08/29/2015

Love, love, love our mat! I shopped for quite some time to find the perfect mat and must of had around 30 rubber samples collected from various companies. I really wanted something squishy enough to absorb impact but also durable enough to withstand a heavyweight in spike heels. I put all the samples to the test, both barefoot and trying on different shoes then with my eyes closed stepping and hopping on each one to see how stiff they were. Then i also put them through the puncture test using high heals and our chairs with the most pointed legs. If they were squishy enough then when i raised my high heel, the sample would be stuck to the heel with a divet in it instead of on the floor where a ''durable'' mat should be. It seemed that if they were in our price range then they weren't what i would consider ''impact absorbing'' AND durable. Well then I tried the Plyometric Roll from Greatmats. FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This mat is so durable I would do jumping jacks on it in heels and not worry for a second. At the same time it is the most impact absorbing mat I've ever worked out on, yet somehow still stiff enough to give you great takeoff when doing those plyometric jumps. The salesperson i worked with Jim Schott was extremely helpful and completely honest with the pros and cons for each Greatmat i had contemplated. He definitely helped me pick the perfect one for what my family needed!!!! Five years ago i was doing Insanity on a wooden floor with a thick yoga mat and my knees hurt daily. I fell off the wagon and gained 20 pounds. Today I'm 43 years old and 20 pounds heavier but now I can do insanity and even P90X Plyometric workouts and walk away with no knee pain whatsoever!!! Thank you Jim Schott & Greatmats!!! P.S. I wanted an economical and durable border to go around it so if we happened to step on the edge barefoot it wouldn't kill our insteps. After walking around all of our local hardware stores we came up with the idea of vinyl wallbase. I ordered a roll of it on Amazon and using a utility knife and double sided carpet tape to stick the wall base onto the rubber in the laid down position . . . vuala!! It would be like the base was stuck on the wall and sort of tipped over and fell onto the mat. The edge curves over the side of the mat and barely touches the floor. Our mat is two nine foot sections of the 3/8 inch 4 foot roll giving our family the perfect 8' x 9' area for working out, playing Xbox, or practicing taekwondo!! One note, when you tape the two sections of rubber roll together don't take the protective sheet off the bottom of the tape, just put the sticky on the side going towards the mats. I've had three of us on this mat doing Billy Blanks tae bo advanced workout and it doesn't budge. To clean it i just vacuum and then graze over it with a very lightly dampened mop. Wish I'd bought it years and saved my knees all the previous pain. The thought of working out anywhere but home, without my mat bums me out! 100% Satisfied customer!!!!!!!!!!!!

Julie

Elkhart, IN

Customer Rating:

06/12/2015

Think there excellent for plyometrics training jumping back and forth. Thought I would need double sided tape to hold it down but it's heavy enough to not even move. Lovin it.

Jason

Schuylkill Haven, PA

Customer Rating:

01/30/2015

Very nice. It moves slightly when performing sprawls, and plyo moves. But you can wedge a rubber mat or wood slat to prevent the movement. You can also see dirty footprints. Might need a mat to wipe shoes . It works well. Smells a little at first. Is a little slippery when you step in your sweat. I would recommend this for workout flooring. It seems to be holding up well. Thank you.

Matt

Portland, OR

Customer Rating:

12/08/2014

Great Product. Easy to install.

Edward D.

Battle Creek, MI

Customer Rating:

09/03/2014

Great product and fairly easy installation!

M Monica

Indianapolis, IN

Customer Rating:

08/09/2014

I am very happy with this product. I used it as a sub-floor for a ballet studio, and it feels great! It gives some cushion for jumps, yet it is firm enough for point work.

Victoria

Andover, MA

Customer Rating:

07/24/2013

Hi Paul - just wanted you to know that the mats I purchased from Greatmats for my new facility are wonderful. They are much more comfortable than the mats I previously had and because they are in a roll, they don't walk everywhere. I have attached a photo of the fitness room I used them in.
Just curious as to the best way to clean them. Now I am vacuuming them then spot cleaning the footprints and sweat off. Can I do a more extensive clean? Can/should I use a cleaner on them? Can I mop them?
Thanks for the info - Tina Wendel, owner Profile Fitness

Tina

Customer Rating:

03/29/2013

Great product! The plyo flooring is soft enought o do floor exercises and is a better product that other higher priced options in the market. I love my new home gym floor.

Matt

Lakewood, CO

Customer Rating:

01/20/2013

the mat is great and the feel is just the right bounce. some variation in color between rolls, but still was a great fit for our rec room

David

New London, IA

Customer Rating:

07/31/2012

Quick delivery, easy install. thanks for making it so easy.

Charley

Kokomo, IN

Customer Rating:

11/02/2010

The floor works much better than the last one we had. We had to put down a wax to make it not so sticky but seems to be working well. We are very pleased with this one. Thanks for your patience with us.